Charity Quilt WIP

I did a little sewing on the charity quilt squares that I cut with the Accu-Quilt cutting system at my bee's sew-in last week.  My theme fabric was the patchwork print.  I also cut a few coordinating squares.

I decided to make a top similar to the ones several other members of the bee were making at our sew-in.  They basically are 5-inch patches of different lengths.  The ones from guild kits had white sashing strips, and also put some of the white strips in between the patches.  I decided to use the white sashing between the rows only.

I have several boxes of strips left over from other projects, so it was easy to chain-piece onto the strips that I had.

I have many, many more of the the multi-colored patchwork squares, so this quilt top will be growing.

I also have a new project that I did not want...a quilt repair job.  More on this later.  All I can say is...

"My Grand-dog ate my Handwork!"

Out of my Slump

For the past week I have had either seasonal allergies or a cold.  How does one tell the difference?  I have had all the symptoms of both, except no fever.  Coughing, coughing, coughing.

Anyway, after years of teaching school no matter how bad I felt, (because it's easier than planning for and dealing with the after-effects of a substitute) I went about my normal activities, but nothing creative.  No sewing, quilting, painting, or even a doodle.  I just didn't feel like it.

Today I decided that my projects were not going to magically get done by themselves.  I fired up the longarm and got a couple things marked off the list.

First were the pillow shams to match the white spring quilt I finished for Marge about a month ago.  I mounted them both on the machine at the same time on a piece of muslin.

The only disadvantage to this method is that you can't clamp each side of the pieces.  That's okay.  I went ahead and basted all around each sham as I went and they came out fine.

Next was a charity top that I promised to quilt for my bee member, Irene, at our February meeting when she gave it to me.  It was definitely past time to get it done.  It was a Warm Wishes pattern in soft pastel florals and baby fabrics.  My first thought was to use a dark pink thread, so I rummaged through my drawer and came up with this Victorian Rose shade.

Do you notice anything wrong with this spool?  Yes, it appears to have at least three different thread ends.  What in the world?  I wound off the thread until it appeared to be back to normal.  Then I tried winding a bobbin. 

Nope, not going to work!  Seriously problematic!  That cone is going in the trash.

Fortunately, the quilting went just fine with a nice new blue thread.  I did Fantasy Freehand Flowers all over.

The quilting looks nice on the rainbow-striped backing.

It has rained all day today, but here is a sure sign of spring.  A pair of Canada geese has moved into one of the ponds on my street, and are raising a brood of goslings.  Several times I have seen them outside of the fence and perilously close to the traffic on the street.  

Please, Mother Goose and Father Goose, keep those babies back in the pond and out of harm's way!

Deja Vu

I could have titled this post the same as the last one, "Another Charity Quilt...and Another Win."  Unbelievably, I won another blog drawing, this time a Jelly roll of Moda's "Little Apples" by Aneela Hoey.  Thanks to Lindsey from Interweave, and to my friend Janice for alerting me to the win!

The next charity quilt is made from those raggedy circle blocks that were quite popular back in the 90's.  I had a book called Quilts From Aunt Amy that had the directions for this quilt with freehand-cut circles that are sewn a quarter-inch in from the edge.  The quilt is pictured on the cover of the book.

When the quilt is finished, you are supposed to wash it to let the raw edges fray and form a kind of textured ruffle. 

 I made a lot of the blocks using muted Civil War repo fabrics.  I decided to donate the blocks at our bee's sew-in last month, and Marilyn Featham stitched them into a quilt top.  I got it quilted yesterday.

 

 

I did some bouncing curves around the whole thing until I got to the circles.  Then I just went round and round, spiraling in to the center and back out.

I had no idea this would look so nice when it was finished!  We had thought this would be for Quilts on Wheels, which is Capital Quilters' Guild's charity for rest home residents in wheelchairs.  But I am thinking now that it might sell well at the Heritage Days auction in the fall.  I will check with my bee and see what they think when we meet tomorrow night.

I found the perfect soft plaid flannel in our basket of donated fabrics.  It has cream, peachy pink and soft green plaid, and is so soft.  I had just barely enough to be able to pin it on the machine.

The quilting shows up nicely on the back.

When I do charity quilts, I try to use up some of the bobbins that are leftover from other projects.  For this one, I used every shade of off-white that I had already wound, which included Linen, Parchment, Ivory, and Sand Dollar.  They all blended in just fine.  Between the three charity quilts I did this week, I freed up about twelve bobbins!  Yippee!

That reddish check fabric in the border of the quilt was left over from my granddaughter's nursery fabric.  She had a double- or queen-size bed in her room for company, and I made this quilt from the fabrics her mom had picked out plus some brighter pinks and greens.  I had some orphan blocks that I added in with the Yellow Brick Road blocks.  The center medallion is a Carolina Lily, which I just had to make since my granddaughter is Lily from South Carolina.

I actually scalloped the border, which made the quilt a bit more feminine.

I had fun doing lots of pretty flowers, swirls and feathers in the quilting.

I also made her a wall-hanging using some of the same fabrics.   I designed the fancy letters, and used patterns from  Bugs, Blooms, and Bullfrogs by Pat Sloan for the flowers, dragonflies, and ladybugs.

I added Swarovski hot-fix crystals, yo-yo's, buttons and beads to embellish the quilt.  The vine is one of those fusible bias strips you can purchase by Clover. I got mine at Mary Jo's Cloth Shop in Gastonia, NC.

This was one of my favorite projects of all time.  I can't believe how fast the years have gone by.  Lily is now in Kindergarten and will be six in June.  But that big quilt I made for her ought to last her until college!

You can see why she got the nickname "Lilybug" from this picture I put on the label.  She had the biggest eyes on her tiny face!



Charity Quilt

I brought home several quilt tops from my bee's Sew-In Day in January, got a new customer quilt, and found one more that I had brought home from guild to quilt.  So, yesterday I warmed up the machine and got busy.  I finished this little one made from bright five-inch squares.

Some of the squares were left over from my grandson's quilt that I made before he was born.  His mom picked out the pattern and helped me choose the fabrics.  I called it Jungle Boogie.  I think the stars are from Jan Mullen's book Cut-Loose Quilts.

I even drafted my own border quilting pattern with jungle animals marching in a row. I quilted it with variegated thread.

Anyway, Kathy Miller completed the top from the leftover squares at our sew-in day, and I quilted just circles and loops with a pale yellow-green thread called Bamboo by Signature.

I started a second charity quilt made from leftover Yellow Brick Road squares from a previous charity quilt I made.  This time Mary Nennstiel put the top together at our sew-in. 

This one is still on the machine.  The quilting shows up rather dramatically on the solid pink backing because I am using black thread.

Tonight we are going to see the musical Memphis at the Durham Performing Arts Center as part of the Broadway South program.  Excited!



Another Charity Quilt

At our bee meeting last week, Carolyn gave me the top she had completed from one of my friend Marcia's UFO's from her mother's sewing room.  Today I got it quilted on the longarm.  This is going to be a Quilt on Wheels project, to be given to a resident of a rest home by the Capital Quilters Guild.

The blue border fabric was pulled from a box of donated fabric.  It matches perfectly!  I wasn't sure about using it, because it is obviously a polyester.  I was pleasantly surprised that it quilted beautifully, and feels very silky!  The back is the same blue solid fabric.  I hope it won't be slipping off someone's lap when it goes to the rest home!

Since the patchwork was all linear and angular, I did a soft freehand feather meander.  I had Misty Jade thread already loaded from my last project, and two extra bobbins of thread.  I think it looks nice on this quilt.

Here is the quilt from the back.  I love the textured, lacy look

Now I will give it back to Carolyn for her to do the binding.  Nothing like tag-team quilting!

Just got back from picking up my car after over $600 in repairs.   I noticed the air conditioner was not working on one of the very warm days we have had recently, so I got that fixed.  They noticed something else wrong with the axle while they were underneath the car, which I suspect could be from the rear-end accident I was in last year.  Probably no way to get the guy's insurance to pay for it at this late date.  Love my car, hate paying for car repairs!

Charity Quilt

Here is a little charity quilt that I just finished for Capital Quilters Guild of Raleigh.  It is for the Quilts on Wheels project, which provides lap quilts for residents of rest homes.  I do not know the piecer- they dropped the top off at the guild, and I picked it up to do the quilting.

This one reminds me of the colors and fabrics of Provence, France.  I took my quilting inspiration from the blue sashing/border  fabric.  It features loopy circles.

Here is a pinwheel section of the quilt.

The backing is a blue and white checked homespun.

I also finished another quilt for a customer, which I will share next time.  In fact, this charity quilt was a warm-up for it, since I had not used the Gammill in a week.  It helps to get in the groove!



Two Little Quilts

The weather was beautiful this weekend...it got up in the high seventies today!  I did manage to get two tops quilted.

The first is a charity quilt that I picked up to do for the Quilts on Wheels charity of the Capital Quilters Guild of Raleigh.  It is a cheater cloth Crazy Quilt with one border added.  I decided to do another panto on it, "Feathers All Over."

The thread broke constantly and I did not like the look of the quilting as much as my own free-motion quilting.  This will probably be my last panto.

The next one is the first of five quilts that my customer Teresa brought to me.  It is a baby quilt with an adorable sea creatures theme fabric.   I just quilted ocean waves in a bright pear green thread.

I sketched some of these funny jellyfish and critters to possibly use in some future quilting.

The backing has the same blue fabric.

I will be leaving for Boone, NC in the morning to spend a few days with my dad.  He was recently in the hospital with congestive heart failure.  In fact, he went in the day before we left for Hawaii.  My brother and his wife from Florida have come up for a few days, so we are going to enjoy a nice visit together.  Two of my other brothers (I have five) also live in Boone, so I am really looking forward to my trip.

Some Finished Projects- and Animals of Hawaii

I have slowly  been getting back into quilting gear after my vacation in Hawaii.  Here are some projects to show you.

First up is a charity quilt that I quilted for the Capital Quilters' Guild of Raleigh.  It will be a wheelchair quilt.  The maker took a piece of what we call "cheater cloth,"  because it looks like patchwork but is just a print.  She added a narrow plaid inner border and two outer borders.  When quilted, it is difficult to tell that it is not actually pieced and appliqued. 

I used a good blender thread in a khaki color called Baguette by Signature.  This is free-motion quilting with a few bunches of cherries here and there.

The backing is a pale blue solid, but this is one of the ones that I had to extend with a strip of my own fabric to make it large enough to mount on the long-arm machine.

Today I finished a quilt that I thought I had almost finished before I left for Hawaii.  It was made by Tonya May, a blogger who I met at the Carolina Longarm Quilt Show back in September.  I picked up her quilt top in North Wilkesboro at a grocery store parking lot! 

Tonya loves turtles, and this cute quilt has pieced turtles.  The head is pointed to the right corner.  Can you see it?

I had fun stitching the shells with various designs.

Here are the borders.

The backing is a turquoise polka-dot print. The thread is a Signature cotton in a new yellow-green shade called "Bamboo."

This quilt was really fun to work on!  I'll get it back to Tonya on our next trip to the mountains in a week or so.

On the subject of turtles, we actually were swimming with sea turtles or "honu" in Hawaii.  The resort has a "lagoon" with real sea water and sea creatures.  The water was so clear that you could see the fish without a snorkel.  Did not like seeing the eels swimming around, but was thrilled to swim along with sea turtles.  When we visited a black sand beach, there was one lying near the waves, not moving.  Charlie thought it was dead or dying, but I found a sign that said the turtles would come out of the Pacific to "rest" on the beaches.

We spotted another one doing the same thing just below the bridge over the lagoon at the resort.

I was standing in the shallow water, peering through the crystal-clear water at the fish, when a sea turtle went swimming right past me, about two feet away!

In addition to the sea creatures, myna birds and doves at the resort, there were feral cats and, of all things, ferrets at the resort!  The ferrets were imported to Hawaii to keep out snakes, I believe.  We noticed them the first morning from our lanai as they skittered in and out of the shrub borders.  (No pics- they were too fast!)

The feral cats are actually fed by a volunteer group known as "Advocats."  They were all over the resort, and help to keep down the mice.

There are also feral pigs and wild donkeys on the Big Island, but we did not see any.  The wild animal I was most thrilled to spot were the many humpback whales off the coast.  We could look for their spouts and watch them breach while sitting at the resort or sometimes even driving along the coast road.

For a more up-close look at ocean mammals, you could visit the dolphin pool right at the resort.  We had a dolphin encounter in Nassau ten years ago, so we just watched from the sides this time.

More next time!